
ClassoIB-2L3t 

COPYRIGHT i;EPOSIT 



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Cuban Cane Sugar 




CANE CRUSHING IN CUBA 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

— a sketch of the industry , from 

soil to sacky together with a 

survey of the circumstances 

which combine to make 

Cuba the Sugar Bowl 

of the World 



By 
ROBERT WILES 



ILLUSTRATED BY 
SIX PHOTOGRAPHS 



i 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 
1916 






Copyright, igiO 
The BobbS'Marill Company 



MAR 23 1916 

©GI,A427354 



Contents 

Page 

I. Our Sweet Tooth Growing 
Sweeter — and Why 1 

II. Sugar Making — from the Soil 
to the Sack 17 

III. Cane vs. Beet — the Struggle 
FOR Supremacy 37 

IV. Cuba — the Sugar Bowl of the 
World 53, 

V. Cuban Cane Sugar — America's 
Opportunity 69 




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I. Our Sweet Tooth 
Growing Sweeter — 
And Why 

OUR grandfathers, in the early 
'50s, got along well enough 
with a family sugar consumption of 
two pounds a week. 

Our fathers' famihes in the '80s 
ate about five pounds a week. 

Twenty years later, in 1900, we 
were eating more than six pounds 
a week. 

Today every American family con- 
sumes between eight and nine pounds 
of sugar from Saturday till Satur- 
day. 

Not the sugar in fruits, or the 
sugars which we digest from the 
potatoes or beans we eat, or other 
natural sugars and sweets, but of 
commercial, store-bought, refined 
sugar we eat more than eight pounds. 

Eight pounds, plus, of sugar a 
[1] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

week to the family — 421 pounds a 
year — some of us eat less, and some 
of us eat more. The figures repre- 
sent our actual national average. 

In two short generations we have 
developed a national sweet tooth 
which calls for more than four times 
the sugar it formerly got. 

Why.? 

* * * * 

If we look for a moment at the 
sugar consumption of some of our 
less fortunate neighbors we may be 
able to see the reason, and to read 
the curious relation which seems to 
exist between sugar and prosperity. 

While we are eating more than 
eight pounds of sugar a week, for 
example, the average Serbian family 
of five (in normal times) consumes 
but a bare fifteen ounces; and in 
Bulgaria, Roumania, and Italy, the 
family consumption amounts only 
to about a pound per week. 
[2] 



Our Sweet Tooth 

The world over, we will find — 
with exceptions, here and there, to 
prove the rule — that the poorer a 
people the less sugar it eats, while 
the more spending money it has the 
more it uses — though, as we shall 
see later, sugar is one of the cheapest 
of foods. 

The use of sugar might well depend 
upon many other things than pros- 
perity. It might well depend upon 
the propinquity of a people to the 
sugar market (and consequently 
price); upon the character of other 
foods consumed — ^for obviously those 
whose principal diet is figs require 
but little store-bought sugar; upon 
the quantities of beer or other sugar- 
producing drinks a people uses; or 
even, on national tradition. But, it 
is interesting to note, from a table 
such as follows, how closely sugar 
and spending-money seem to go hand 
in hand: 

[3] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 



United States (1914) 
Germany (1913) 
Austria (1913) 
Italy (1913) 
Serbia (1913) 


Per Capita 

Circulation 

of Money 

$35.18 

19.29 

12.08 

8.82 

6.84 


Per Capita 
Annual Sugar 
Consumption 

84. 29 lbs. 

45.13 

29.17 

11.68 

10.03 



England, with a per capita circula- 
tion of money less than five-sevenths 
of our own, has an apparent statis- 
tical consumption of 93.37 pounds of 
sugar per capita as against our 84.29. 
These figures for consumption in- 
clude, however, the sugar used in 
the manufacture of jams, marma- 
lades and other preserves, much of 
which products are exported. If the 
amount of sugar so used and sent 
out of the country in manufactured 
form were deducted, and if our own 
consumption of England's manu- 
factured sweets added to our quota, 
it would, no doubt, appear that 
England's per capita consumption 
was not so high as our own. 
[4] 



Our Sweet Tooth 

France, with a per capita money 
circulation larger than ours, con- 
sumes less sugar — but the high cost 
of sugar in France, and the cheapness 
of wine, may in a measure account 
for this. 

Australia, with $47.18 of money 
per capita as against our $35.18, 
might reasonably be expected to 
consume more sugar — and she does 
— 100 pounds per capita per annum 
as against our 84.29. 

The comparison is not only true 
as between nations. It is true as 
between sections of the same nation, 
as could easily be shown; and it is 
true as between different periods of 
a nation's prosperity. 

Taking our own case, the com- 
parative figures read: 



1850 


Per Capita 

Circulation 

of Money 

$19.41 


Per Capita 

Annual Sugar 

Consumption 

39.46 


1880 


26.93 


58.91 


1914 


35.18 
[5] 


84.29 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

It would seem, if prosperity sweet- 
ens our sweet tooth, that adversity 
should have the opposite effect. 
But such is not the case. It is as if, 
in times of adversity, w^e were saying 
to ourselves, "We cannot afford 
more sugar — but we cannot get along 
with less" and so, as always, in 
such circumstances, we limit our 
expenditures, but spend, really, a 
little more than we can afford. 

The figures show this. The de- 
cade, for example, between 1890 
and 1900 was a period of protracted 
and general financial depression in 
the United States. At the beginning 
of this decade the per capita sugar 
consumption was 60.7 pounds, while 
at the end of the decade the con- 
sumption was 61.8 pounds. In other 
words, instead of cutting our sugar 
down to a point where it had for- 
merly been, we kept it at just about 
a constant level. 

[61 



Our Sweet Tooth 

And during the following ten 
years — 1900 and 1910 — a period rec- 
ognized as one of unprecedented, 
general prosperity, we abandoned 
restraint, and our sugar consumption 
jumped from 66.6 pounds to 81.6 

pounds per capita per annum. 
* * * * 

It would be putting the cart before 
the horse, however, to say that we 
use more sugar because we are 
more prosperous. 

The simple fact is that we have 
come more and more to realize that 
sugar is a good food; as our pros- 
perity has increased we have been 
better able to buy the foods we 
wanted or needed; in times of ad- 
versity we have merely cut down on 
those foods which cost more and 
gave us less value. 

Where formerly we were told that 
sugar exercised an injurious physical 
eflFect, we know now that it is pos- 
[7] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

sible for us to assimilate only so 
much as is good for us — no more; 
and that if we eat too much sugar, the 
pangs of indigestion warn us of our 
error before any harm can come — if 
we pay attention to the warning. 

Where, formerly, we thought that 
sugar must be bad for us because we 
liked the taste of it, we now know 
that sugar is demanded for the 
balanced ration, that it has a heat 
and energy producing value as great 
as lean meat, and that the nitrogen 
retention of proteid food, such as 
meat, fish, eggs and milk, is increased 
25% when consumed with sugar. 

A tabulation of the principal items 
of diet may be of interest: 

Available Energy When Consumed As Food 

Meat and Fish 87% 

Eggs 89% 

Fruits 90% 

Cereals 91% 

Dairy Products 93% 

Vegetables 95% 

Sugar 98% 

[8] 



Our Sweet Tooth 

When we realize that sugar costs 
only in the neighborhood of five or 
six cents per pound and that the 
other items listed run upward in 
price as high as forty cents per 
pound, most of them ranging be- 
tween twenty and thirty cents, it 
will be seen why economy impels us 
to eat as much sugar as we can in 
connection with the other foods 
necessary to make a perfectly bal- 
anced ration. 

That sugar is no longer considered 
a luxury can be convincingly read, 
also, from the statistics of candy 
consumption. 

Our national candy bill runs well 
in excess of $500,000,000 a year. 
It amounts to more in a single 
twelve-month than the entire recent 
Anglo-French loan. It represents a 
per capita expenditure of more than 
five dollars a year. For many years 
we have been not only unapproached 
[91 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

by any other country in the con- 
sumption of candy, but have con- 
sumed more than all other countries 
reporting candy manufacture. 

New York City is our largest candy 
consuming centre — the largest con- 
suming centre in the world — both as 
to total consumption and per capita 
consumption. 

At first thought we might say that 
New York is a city of wealth and 
prosperity and that its enormous 
candy consumption represents the 
gratification of a desire for a luxury. 

But New York's candy is not sold 
to New York's rich — it is sold to sat- 
isfy the hunger of New York's poor. 
Where New York consumes one 
pound of high priced candies it 
consumes at least ten pounds of the 
cheaper grades such as are sold on 
the push-carts of Delancey Street. 

From this we can only judge that 
there must be an economic reason 
[10] 



Our Sweet Tooth 

why our poor are the great candy 
consumers; their standard of living 
is so low, and the food available to 
them so inferior, that they feel, 
constantly, a natural hunger which 
they are most easily able to satisfy 
through buying the cheaper and 
more tempting sweets. 

From the jBgures, the story of sugar 
is plain: 

As we learn more and more the 
value of sugar as a food we buy more 
and more as our pocket-books per- 
mit us. Then, in times of depression 
Hke those we have just gone through, 
we eat slightly more sugar than 
usual, unconsciously, perhaps, be- 
cause we reduce our consumption of 
the higher priced, less nourishing 
food-stuffs. 

And, finally, with meats and grains 

mounting higher and higher, while 

sugar, because of improvement in 

methods of production, has steadily 

[111 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

gone lower, we turn more and more 

toward the consumption of sweets. 
^ ^ ^ ^ 

There is still another factor which 
may loom large, in the future, in 
influencing the consumption of sugar, 
and which cannot be overlooked in 
a general survey such as this. 

This factor is the prohibition 
movement. 

A large percentage of all intoxi- 
cating liquors are made from the 
syrup which comes as a by-product 
in the manufacture of sugar; and 
all intoxicating liquors, whiskies, 
brandies, wines, beers, and ales rep- 
resent only a chemical re-arrange- 
ment of sugar. 

When the drinker stops taking 
alcoholic beverages, or even cuts 
down on them, he must and does use 
more sugar in his tea or coffee and 
his general dietary. 

Although prohibition has been 
[12] 



Our Sweet Tooth 

definitely and steadily growing for 
more than thirty years, the fact has 
not as yet been reflected in the 
statistics of liquor consumption; 
during the decade 1904-1914 the 
consumption of liquors of all kinds 
increased nearly forty per cent., while 
the population increased only slightly 
over twenty per cent. 

Nevertheless, state-wide prohibi- 
tion has already been enacted in 
eighteen of the forty-eight States 
while local option prevails in sixteen, 
with several states soon to vote on 
the question. Moreover, when the 
Hobson resolution, to submit to the 
States the prohibition amendment 
to the Constitution, was laid before 
the House, 197 members voted for 
it, 169 against it. 

So we see that the prohibition 

wave is a thing of fact, not of fancy. 

Whether or not it will effectively 

stop the consumption of liquor, it 

[13] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

must, if only by reducing it, increase 

the consumption of sugar. 
* * * * 

We see, thus, that the advance 
of sugar goes hand in hand with the 
advance of intelhgence and pros- 
perity; that adversity only slightly 
checks the advance; that the high 
cost of living and the prohibition 
movement, both of which promise 
to be with us for many years to 
come, tend to increase consumption. 

As a result of the operation of 
these factors, our national sweet 
tooth has been growing sweeter and 
sweeter — not only ours, but that of 
our neighbors. 

And the sum of this increase in the 
use of sugar is indelibly written in 
the statistics of world sugar pro- 
duction, as follows: 

In 1870 the total production of 
cane and beet sugar in the whole 
world was 2,750,000 tons. 
[14 1 



Our Sweet Tooth 

In 1914 this total had risen to 
18,773,486 tons — a jump, in a single 
generation, of more than 600 per 
cent. 

As matters stand today we are 
digging out of the ground, the world 
over, only about one-third enough 
gold to pay our annual billion-and-a- 
quarter dollar raw sugar bill. 

All of the petroleum produced in 
the world in a year equals hardly 
more than one-quarter the value of 
the year's raw sugar crop. 

All of the ever increasing quan- 
tities of tobacco used amount in 
value to barely a third of what we 
pay for our raw sugar. 

And coffee, too, growing apace 
with tobacco, would have to multi- 
ply its annual crop by more than 
four in order to be abreast of sugar, 
while rubber, with more than two 
million motor cars consuming it at 
an astounding rate, must be multi- 
[15] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

plied by almost six before it equals 
in value the crystals which our 
canes and beets are producing an- 
nually to satisfy our sweet tooth. 

The world's sugar crop is bigger 
than her cotton crop — much bigger. 
It is exceeded, in fact, only by the 
grain crops and the production of 

live stock. 

* * * * 

If the demand for sugar increases 
during the next fifty years as it has 
during the past fifteen, we must 
increase our facilities for producing 
it to at least seven times their pre- 
sent capacity. 

But if the demand should not 
increase at all, if sugar should come 
to a sudden standstill, the import- 
ance of this crop among the world's 
basic productions has, during the 
past hundred years, been established 
beyond question or doubt. 



16 



II. Sugar Making — 

From the Soil to 

the Sack 

Those of us who have known the 
boyhood joy of a maple sugar camp 
in full swing, may think that the 
granulated sugar of commerce is 
made by the same process — boiling, 
boiling, boiling, and draining. 

It is not. It is not even made 
from molasses as our geographies 
used to state. The molasses is, in 
fact, a by-product of sugar manu- 
facture — not, as many suppose, its 
starting point. 

There is an important difference, 
in fact, between syrup and molasses. 
The former is the juice or sap of a 
sugar producing plant, boiled and 
clarified, and containing its entire 
original sugar content; the latter is 
the residue after the sugar crystals 
have been extracted from the syrup. 
[17] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

Before going into the details of 
the interesting process of sugar mak- 
ing itself, it may be said that all of 
our commercial sugar is cane sugar. 

No matter whether it comes from 

the juice of the beet, or the sap of the 

bamboo or maple, or from cane 

itself, chemically and technically it 

is known as cane sugar. 

* * * * 

^ There are two classes of sugar in 
nature — which, avoiding long Latin 
names, may be called single sugars 
and double sugars. Cane sugar, 
milk sugar, malt sugar, are some of 
the double sugars. Grape sugar and 
fruit sugar are common single sugars. 

If we take a double sugar and 
submit it either to heat, acid or 
ferment, we turn it into single or 
invert sugar. 

The double sugars are of no use 
as food while they remain double — 
they cannot be assimilated in the 
[18 1 



From Soil to Sack 

body for the formation of organic 
tissue or the production of heat and 
energy. Only the single sugars are 
available. 

But, practically, this is of no con- 
sequence since the acidity of our 
digestive juices, the heat of our 
bodies and our digestive ferments 
combine to form ideal conditions for 
inversion, and accomplish this chem- 
ical change shortly after we have 
eaten the double sugar. 
_Cane sugar has two and one-half 
times the sweetening power of fruit 
sugar and more than two and one- 
half times the sweetening power of 
grape sugar — which is one of the 
reasons why all of our commercial 
sugar is cane sugar instead of the 

more easily assimilable single sugars. 
* * * * 

There are countless plants in nature 
which may be made to yield us cane 
sugar. All fruits contain two or 

[19 1 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

more sugars, of which cane sugar, 
fruit sugar and grape sugar, are the 
most important. 

For centuries sugar has been man- 
ufactured from different species of 
palms by the natives of India. The 
bamboo is a sugar-producing plant 
which was utilized by the ancient 
peoples of Asia and is supposed to 
be the first plant from which sugar 
was extracted. Sugar is manu- 
factured from raisins in practically 
all the countries of southern Europe 
and western Asia. Indian corn has 
been used experimentally in the 
manufacture of sugar, while Sorghum 
or Chinese cane, with a high sugar 
content, yields a large syrup crop, 
but for chemical and manufacturing 
reasons little or no actual sugar. 
The saps of many trees besides the 
maple contain sweets. Sugar and 
syrup have even been manufactured 
in the United States from water- 
[20 1 



From Soil to Sack 

melons — an industry which was 
nipped in the bud by the intro- 
duction of refrigerator cars and cold 
storage, which made a wider and 
more profitable market for the 
melons themselves. 

But for practical purposes the 
commercial sugar of the world can be 
considered as coming from the juice 
of the cane or the beet. The con- 
sumption of all other sugars amounts 

to but a small fraction of a per cent. 
* * * * 

Whether our sugar is to be pro- 
duced from beets or cane, the first 
step is the production of the syrup — 
the separation of the sweet watery 
content of the plant from the pulp 
or woody portions. 

In the case of cane, the operation 
is simplicity itself. All that is needed 
is crushing. 

The pioneer methods of milling 
and crushing in the cane growing 
[21] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

countries of the world were crude 
almost beyond belief. The first 
crushers consisted of wooden rollers 
— two adze-hewn logs — usually ver- 
tical, operated by hand-power. 
Twenty -five per cent, of the total 
juice represented all that could be 
extracted by this means. 

The first improvement — and this 
came not so many years ago — was 
the substitution of vertical cast-iron 
rollers, which, in construction and 
manipulation, differed little from the 
old wooden rollers, but added an 
extra fifteen per cent, to the total 
of the juice extraction. The next 
advance was marked by the intro- 
duction of steam-power, which per- 
mitted an increase in the size of 
rollers; and finally this improve- 
ment was followed by the introduc- 
tion of horizontal instead of vertical 
rollers. These raised the efficiency 
of extraction to sixty-five per cent. 
[22] 



From Soil to Sack 

Steel rollers are now used almost 
exclusively in the larger mills and 
the number of rollers has increased 
from one pair to three and from three 
to nine. Many of the mills have 
shredders or corrugated crushers, 
through which the cane is passed 
before conveying to the smooth 
rollers. Cane prepared in this way 
yields from eighty to ninety per cent, 
of its total juice, while still higher 
percentages are secured by saturating 
the bagasse, as the crushed cane is 
called, with water and passing it 
through the mill several times. 

The process, despite this lengthy 
description, is simplicity itseK. All 
that is required is to extract the 
juice from the cane by crushing — 
and with the present advance of 
engineering and invention in this 
line, the day is in sight when prac- 
tically all of the available juice can 
be separated and saved. 
[23 1 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

In the case of beet sugar, the 
process is more difficult and expen- 
sive. First the beets must be thor- 
oughly washed to cleanse them of 
the quantities of field earth which 
adhere to them. In the early days 
of the beet sugar industry it was the 
custom after washing to pulp the 
beets and effect the extraction of the 
juice by pressing, much as cane is 
pressed. But this method is so 
wasteful and so inefficient, because 
of the structure of the beet, that it 
has been abandoned and a diffusion 
process substituted. 

The first operation in the diffusion 
process is to slice the beets into the 
thinnest possible individual pieces. 
This is done by a machine which 
cuts the beets with a multitude of 
curved knife blades, revolving rap- 
idly. When the beets are cut into 
thin, irregular slices on this machine, 
they are placed, in water, in the first 
[24] 



From Soil to Sack 

of a set of cylindrical vessels called 
a diffusion battery. These vessels 
communicate with each other by 
pipes so arranged that the juice 
issuing from the bottom of one dif- 
fuser Hows into the top of the next. 
By this means the sugar content 
is dissolved and the sweet, viscous 
liquid or syrup w^hich is the starting 
point of both beet and cane sugar is 
secured. 

•fC ^ 3fC Sfi 

This viscous liquid as it comes 
from the mill, whether from cane or 
from beets, is subject to almost 
immediate fermentation, since it 
forms an ideal culture for the prop- 
agation of germs. If allowed to 
stand, it will quickly sour and 
invert into single sugar. 

It is a curious point about the 

sugars, well worth noting here, that 

in weak solutions the^^ are easily 

fermented, while in concentrated 

[25 1 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

solutions they are able to preserve 
themselves from the attacking germs. 
The grape, for example, soon decays 
after it is taken from the vine. But 
if its sugar is concentrated, as in the 
raisin, it will keep indefinitely. The 
same is true of our other table 
fruits. Fresh fruits soon spoil; those 
which we protect by concentrating 
their sweets we call preserves, and 
these we can easily carry over one 
or more winters. 

The susceptibility of freshly milled 
syrup to fermentation calls for im- 
mediate attention; if left a few 
hours it may sour. So the first 
operation is to boil it. At this stage 
it is a turbid, dark-colored liquid, 
full of woody and gummy constit- 
uents, wholly unfit to be worked up 
into sugar without clarification. 

Protection against micro-organ- 
isms, as stated, is accomplished 
simply enough by boiling. The 



From Soil to Sack 

boiling kills the germs which are 
present, the evaporation concen- 
trates the sugar solution and pre- 
vents further invasion, and the heat 
coagulates the albuminous constitu- 
ents of the syrup, forming a froth, 
which, when removed, has accom- 
plished much in the process of clar- 
ification. 

Besides heat, which coagulates 
the albumen, another agent which 
has been used for clarification from 
the earliest times is lime. This pre- 
cipitates the gummy matters which 
form into a muddy sediment at the 
bottom and into a top layer of froth 
between which the bulk of the juice 
is clear and limpid. 

Thus we see that the first step 
after the juice leaves the mill is to 
boil it and to add a measured quan- 
tity of milk of lime, or in plainer 
English, whitewash. This white- 
wash, much as we should dislike to 
[27 1 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

drink it, has no effect whatever on 
the sugar. It attacks only the 
impurities, both dissolved and sus- 
pended, but does not combine with 
or alter the sucrose itself. 

When the syrup has been clarified 
by boiling and liming, it may be said 
to consist of two elements — sugar 
and molasses. The sugar is repre- 
sented by that portion which can 
be crystallized out, the molasses be- 
ing the residuum. 

The sugar crystals are now sepa- 
rated from the molasses by whirling 
it rapidly in a machine called a 
centrifugal. This machine consists 
essentially of a perforated basket, 
revolving inside an iron casing. The 
basket is lined with finely perforated 
sheet bronze or with woven wire 
cloth and may measure from four- 
teen to twenty-four inches in depth 
and from thirty to forty inches in 
diameter. Revolving at a speed of 
[28] 



From Soil to Sack 

from 1,000 to 1,400 revolutions 
per minute, the molasses is forced 
out through the fine openings, caught 
in the iron casing and carried off in 
a conduit, while the sugar crystals 
themselves are retained in the basket. 
The basket is spun until the sugar is 
practically free of molasses; such 
sugar is then known as raw, or 
centrifugal, sugar. It is definitely 
crystalline in character, but still 
moist and lumpy. Its color, due 
to the impurities it still contains, 
varies from a light tan to a dark 
brown. 

4: 4: « « 

The molasses which has been 
carried off in a conduit is now boiled 
again, replaced in the centrifugal for 
the extraction of still more crystals, 
which are kept separate and called 
*' molasses sugar." When this pro- 
cess has been carried to its profitable 
limit, the final molasses is sold for 
[29] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

the manufacture of rum, whiskey, 

or other spirituous liquors, or for the 

manufacture of alcohol. There are 

many other markets for molasses, 

including the manufacture of stock 

foods, its use as a fertilizer, etc., but 

its conversion into alcohol and spirits 

represents its chief use. 

* * * * 

The raw sugar from the centrif- 
ugals is still unfit for use, and must 
now be refined; in refining, it is 
first dissolved in hot water, the 
liquor thus formed being filtered 
through cotton bags to remove all 
insoluble impurities. It is next run 
into iron cylinders packed with 
charred bones, bone charcoal having 
a peculiar affinity for the soluble 
impurities and leaving the sugar, 
after filtration, in a purified and 
decolored condition. This purified, 
colorless, liquid sugar is now boiled 
in vacuum pans, refilled as evapora- 
[30] 



From Soil to Sack 

tion sets in, until the crystals have 
begun to re-form, when the mass is 
again spun in centrifugals which 
separate the crystals from the liquor 
as before. These crystals, after 
drying in horizontal cylinders, are 
turned out as the granulated sugar 
of commerce. 

If soft white sugar is desired, the 
process is stopped after passing 
through the centrifugals . The granu- 
lated grades are obtained by control- 
ling the crystallization in a granu- 
lator and by sieve grading. 

Loaf sugar is made by running the 
mass from the vacuum pans into 
molds, where it drains; and then 
placing the molds in ovens to be 
solidified. Pressed cubes are made 
from moistened granulated sugar. 

The liquor taken from the centrif- 
ugal machines is reboiled and yields 
the soft or brown sugars, and the 
final residue is sold as molasses. 
[311 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

In technical and trade descrip- 
tions of sugars we often find the 
expression "96° centrifugal." The 
"centrifugal," we now understand, 
refers to the process by which the 
sugar was made — that is, as against 
boiling, evaporating and draining, 
as is done in the case of maple sugar 
and as was formerly the practice 
before the days of improved ma- 
chinery in cane sugar. 

The "96°" refers to the quality 
of the sugar and brings up the 
curious method in vogue for deter- 
mining sugar quality. 

Sugar is not, as might be sup- 
posed, tested by taste for its sweet- 
ness or by any of the chemical means 
which might be suggested, but is 
judged by the way in which it re- 
fracts light. 

We know that when we poke a 
stick into a pond the part of the stick 
below water seems bent and fore- 



From Soil to Sack 

shortened; and that when we pass 
light through glass at an angle its 
direction is changed. 

Similarly, sugar in solution has 
the property of bending the rays of 
light which it refracts; diflferent 
sugars have different refractive prop- 
erties; and in actual practice sugar, 
instead of being tasted or analyzed, 
is examined by an instrument called 
the polariscope, designed to measure 
the character of this refraction. 

Fruit sugar bends the ray of light 
to the left. Its technical name is 
Levulose, and is, in fact, called a left- 
hand sugar; cane sugar (sucrose), 
and grape sugar (dextrose), bend the 
ray of light to the right, and are 
known as right-hand sugars. 

The polariscope readings of some 
different commercial sugars are: 
Black Strap 71°, Cuban Molasses 
Sugar 77°, Cuban 1st Sugar 96°, 
and Java White Sugar 99.6°. 
[33] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

We have before us, now, a general 
survey of the methods by which our 
sugar crop is commerciahzed. There 
are many by-processes not necessary 
to describe here — many ingenious 
short cuts — and many efficient means 
of utiHzing the sugars in waste 
products of manufacture, but the 
process as a whole follows the lines 
described here. 

Thus we see that the essentials of 
sugar making are: 

1. A plant such as cane or the 
sugar beet, which yields sugar 
economically in crystallizable 
form. 

2. A means for separating the 
juice from the woody and other 
constituents of the plant. 

3. A means for clarifying, purify- 
ing, and making germ-proof this 
juice or syrup. 

4. An apparatus for separating 
the molasses from the sugar 

[34 1 



From Soil to Sack 

crystals — a centrifugal ma- 
chine. 
5. A means for washing and filter- 
ing the raw sugar thus pro- 
duced and of reducing it to the 
clean, pure, white crystals of 
commerce. 
In the manufacture of beet sugar, 
these operations are frequently car- 
ried on under one roof; the beet 
sugar factory may well be a com- 
plete institution, buying its beets 
from the neighboring farmers (often 
furnishing them the seed and super- 
vising their crops), and turning out 
a complete commercial sugar. 

This arrangement is possible, in 
the case of beet sugar, because sugar 
beets can be grown in climates and 
localities suitable for manufacturing. 
In the case of cane sugar, however, 
the process is split in two. Cane is 
a product of the tropics and semi- 
tropics where sugar refining could be 
[35 1 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

carried on, for several reasons, to 
poor advantage. The cane planter, 
therefore, converts his crop of cane 
immediately into raw sugar on his 
own premises, or in the neighbor- 
hood, and this raw sugar is sent to 
refiners in the country of consump- 
tion, where the after-processes are 
carried out. 

:» H: $ ^ 

The making of sugar, from the soil 
to the sack, is a simple process, and 
an interesting one; considering that 
it has only lately been rescued from 
the primitive, considering the ad- 
vancements already wrought, and 
considering its ever increasing im- 
portance among the world's produc- 
tions, one can but wonder what new 
efficiencies and what further econo- 
mies inventive genius holds in store 
for it. 



[36 




(0 

J hJ 

< E 

? I 







< < H S 

iL T "^ I- o: 5 

H i < W < z < 

Z ^ O ): CL O J 

W _, D ''^ liJ (t O 

? w (0 IL Z 



III. Cane vs. Beet — The 
Struggle for Supremacy 

We owe the discovery of cane sugar 
to the Bengalese in India; as long 
ago as the third or fourth century 
A. D., travelers from India brought 
back news of ''Indian salt." From 
the fifth century, we can trace its 
spread into Arabia, Egypt, Spain, 
Portugal, the Canary Islands, Brazil, 
Cuba, and so on around the world. 

But the making of sugar out of 
beets we owe distinctly to Napoleon 
Bonaparte. It is just 110 years 
since Napoleon gave the beet its 
impetus, and the circumstances were 
these : 

In 1804-5 the business affairs of 
Europe were in much the same 
tangle as they are in the war times of 
today. 

Napoleon was successful in bat- 
[37] 



I. 

Cuban Cane Sugar i 

tering down the continental fron- 
tiers and in increasing his possessions 
amazingly — but he met failure in 
his principal task — that of humilia- 
ting his chief enemy, Great Britain; 
and, in 1805, he was forced to give 
up his intention of attacking that 
country when Nelson destroyed the 
French fleet off Trafalgar, conse- 
quently preventing the landing of 
the French in England. 

When, in the end, Great Britain 
established herself as mistress of the 
seas, and succeeded in opening trade 
relations with the continent, in spite 
of Napoleon's strenuous efforts to 
forbid them, the French Emperor 
devised what was known as the 
"Continental System" which dealt 
a disastrous blow to the cane sugar 
industry. 

Seeing that the struggle was not 
to be brought to an end by fighting, 
Napoleon tried to isolate his enemy 
[38] 



Cane vs. Beet 

by forbidding commercial communi- 
cation between England and the 
entire continent of Europe. 

When this decree was issued and 
all British and Colonial goods were 
confiscated, England sought reprisal 
by prohibiting ships of any nation- 
ality from approaching French har- 
bors on the penalty of confiscation; 
whereupon Napoleon, in turn, de- 
creed that any ship which had either 
submitted to English examination or 
had paid dues in English harbors be 
confiscated. 

With both sides engineering bitter 
blockades, shipping came to a stand- 
still and sugar prices on the conti- 
nent went up, and up, and up to 
prohibitive figures. 

Meanwhile, the lack of sugar be- 
came an important war-time problem 
which demanded immediate and vig- 
orous action. Napoleon set about, 
at once, to find substitutes for cane 
[39 1 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

sugar which might be grown in 
France. In his search he learned 
that sugar could be produced from 
grapes and from beetroots, but he 
did not confine himself to these, 
experimenting meanwhile with ap- 
ples, pears, plums, quinces, mul- 
berries, chestnuts, figs, sorghum, 
field corn, and the saps of several 
trees. 

Nearly sixty years previously, 
Marggraf , in Berlin, had shown that 
various kinds of beetroot contained 
sugar which could successfully be 
crystallized out. Forty years later 
Achard, a Frenchman, experimented 
with different varieties of beetroot; 
and, when his results became known, 
Frederick Wilhelm III, King of 
Prussia, started experimentation on 
a large scale and contributed to- 
ward the erection of several sugar 
factories, at the same time offering 
bounties to farmers who produced 
[40] 



Cane vs. Beet 

more than twenty tons of beetroot 
a year. 

After a number of costly experi- 
ments had been directed toward the 
production of grape sugar, with poor 
results, Napoleon, in 1811, ordered 
32,000 hectares — about 75,000 acres 
— to be planted with beetroot — dis- 
tributed over the several provinces — 
and established four schools in which 
sugar manufacture was to be taught. 
In the meantime, he stifled whatever 
little competition cane sugar might 
still be offering, by forbidding all 
further importation from the East 
and West Indies. In 1812 the num- 
ber of sugar schools was increased 
and 100,000 hectares— 247,100 acres 
— were planted and by that time 
334 factories were in operation. 

The news of the new sugar indus- 
try soon spread and Austria and 
Germany vied with France in their 
efforts to produce the crystals from 
[41] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

beets. In 1814 when Napoleon had 
to abdicate, his "Continental Sys- 
tem" was abolished, and imported 
sugar was again admitted on the 
continent. This proved but a tem- 
porary set-back to the new industry, 
however, so rapid had been its rise 
and so great the enthusiasm which 
attended the discovery. By 1830 
the beet sugar industry was in full 
swing once more. 

•J* ^ •!• T^ 

Cane, having always been con- 
sidered the natural source from which 
to expect sugar, received little atten- 
tion or promotion. While the best 
minds of Europe were studying the 
beet, improving the varieties, in- 
venting new and more efficient means 
of extraction, and generally giving 
the subject serious consideration, 
cane sugar continued to be produced 
in the most primitive way. 

It was not, in fact, until the early 
[42 1 



Cane vs. Be e t 

'80s that the cane planter woke up 
from his long sleep. 

The typical owner of a sugar plan- 
tation lived in tropical style, well up 
to his income and invested the least 
possible money in improvements. 
He was prone to spend all he made 
without thinking of creating a re- 
serve fund, and consequently, when 
the beet — all things considered, a 
much inferior plant to the cane for 
the purpose — began, by sheer dint of 
scientific handling, to encroach upon 
the cane, he was absolutely unpre- 
pared for the struggle for existence 
which lay before him. This condi- 
tion, however, did not continue long, 
and in the early '80s, capital, in 
moderate amounts, began to be 
available to sugar planters, and cane 
sugar manufacture began to shake 
off its primitive shackles. 

In 1870 the production of cane 
sugar was almost double that of beet 
[43 1 



Cuban Cane Sugar 



sugar. By 1880 beet sugar had 
climbed up to a point of approxi- 
mate equality, and then, as stated, 
the struggle began. 

The story of the race is indelibly 
written in the figures of World's 
sugar production, (Mulhall and Wil- 
lett & Gray), which are quoted here: 



Years 


Cane 


Beet 


Total 


1870 


1,850,000 


900,000 


2,750,000 


1880 


1,860,000 


1,810,000 


3,670,000 


1890 


2,580,000 


2,780,000 


5,360,000 


1898 


2,850,000 


4,650,000 


7,500,000 


1900 


3,056,294 


5,590,992 


8,647,286 


1902 


4,079,742 


6,913,504 


10,993,346 


1903 


4,163,941 


5,756,720 


9,920,661 


1904 


4,234,203 


6,089,468 


10,323,631 


1905 


4,594,782 


4,918,480 


9,513,262 


1906 


6,731,165 


7,216,060 


13,947,225 


1907 


7,329,317 


7,143,818 


14,473,135 


1908 


6,917,663 


7,002,474 


13,920,137 


1909 


7,625,639 


6,927,875 


14,553,514 


1910 


8,327,069 


6,597,506 


14,914,575 


1911 


8,422,447 


8,560,346 


16,982,793 


1912 


9,006,030 


6,820,266 


15,886,296 


1913 


9,232,543 


8,976,271 


18,208,814 


1914 


9,865,016 


8,908,470 


18,773,486 



44 



Cane vs. Beet 

It will be seen that the race, as 
thrilling a one as was ever run in 
the sport of Kings — started neck and 
neck; beet with its impetus was go- 
ing strong in the '90s, a length and 
a half ahead; by the middle of the 
nineteen-hundreds cane had regained 
her wind and closed her decade in 
the lead; since then beet has not 
been alongside; and if the final fig- 
ures for 1915-16 were known, her 
percentage showing, partially be- 
cause of the curtailment of beet- 
growing in Germany, Austria, France, 
and Russia, would quite likely be 
the poorest in forty years. The esti- 
mates of Willett & Gray and F. O. 
Licht are: 

World's 1915-16 Sugar Crop: 
Cane Beet 

10,333,000 tons 6,306,102 tons 

Let us look into the facts, then, 
observing the fundamentals under- 
lying the struggle and see if we can 
forecast the outcome. 
[45] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

Let it be stated at the outset that 
there is no difference between beet 
sugar and cane sugar when refined. 
In their chemical composition, in 
their quahty and taste, and in their 
commercial value, they are identical. 
The only question is which can pro- 
duce a pound of crystallized sugar, 
delivered to the consumer, at the 
least cost. 

The climatic conditions required 
for the profitable production of sugar 
beets are entirely different from 
those required for the production of 
sugar cane. 

Sugar cane started in the tropics 
and has never been coaxed very far 
from its native zone. It needs a nine 
months' growing season of hot days 
and nights, and it will not stand 
severe winters. It requires both 
moisture and sunshine, and unless 
irrigation is resorted to, needs an 
annual rainfall of from fifty to 
[46 1 



Cane vs. Beet 

sixty -five inches. Given favorable 
growing conditions, such as the 
cleared jungle of Cuba or Java, it re- 
quires a minimum of labor. 

Sugar beets, on the other hand, 
constitute a typical temperate zone 
crop. They require rich soil, and 
especially good drainage conditions. 
If there is not abundant rainfall, the 
beets must be irrigated. Unless the 
soil is very rich in natural fertilizing 
ingredients, it becomes necessary to 
apply commercial fertilizer gener- 
ously. The beet is a crop which re- 
quires constant cultivation during 
the early part of the growing season 
and is subject to a number of ene- 
mies and diseases. It has been noted 
that as the beet crop has increased, 
its enemies have become more wide- 
spread and destructive each year. 

We see, thus, that the beet requires 
land which is worth from forty to 
two-hundred dollars per acre for 
[47] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

other purposes, whereas, cane flour- 
ishes best in the tropics with land, 
which, assuming that the Mahogany 
and Cedar pays the cost of clearing, 
costs from six to fifteen dollars per 
acre and is good for little else. 

The beet requires expensive irri- 
gation, cultivation and care, involv- 
ing high priced temperate zone labor; 
whereas the cane, in equally suitable 
surroundings requires no irrigation 
and little or no cultivation — only 
harvesting by cheap tropical help at 
a few cents a week. 

^ ^ 4: 4: 

To put the comparison in money, 
it may be stated that the average pro- 
ducer of beets in the United States 
realizes an annual profit of from fif- 
teen to forty dollars per acre, with 
land costing from forty to two hun- 
dred dollars as his investment; while 
the average producer of Cuba real- 
izes an annual profit of from thirty 
[48] 



Cane vs. Beet 

to eighty dollars per acre from land 
costing six to fifteen dollars per acre. 

Looking at the situation in this 
light, it would seem strange that 
beet should have made the advance 
it has. But there is another reason 
for this; the stronghold of the beet 
is in Germany, Austria, France, Hol- 
land, and other nations of Central 
Europe. These nations have a four- 
fold reason for growing the beet; 
first, they are far removed from the 
jungles where cane sugar best grows; 
second, they have the added incen- 
tive of a hundred years of develop- 
ment, improvement and investment 
in the beet; third, their labor costs 
are low; fourth, there are no ** big- 
money " crops competing with sugar- 
cane for the land. 

As to labor, it will be readily un- 
derstood, that this is a most im- 
portant item of expense in beet sugar 
production. 

[49] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

Where we, in the United States, 
pay one dollar to a dollar-and-a-half 
a day for field labor, the average cost 
in Germany and France is from fifty 
to seventy cents per day; while in 
Austria farm and unskilled factory 
laborers receive only fifteen to thirty 
cents per day. 

If we add to these facts the further 
fact that, because of duties, taxes, 
bounties, and transportation, the re- 
tail price of cane sugar in Central 
Europe is much higher than in 
America, we will see the real under- 
lying cause of the rise of beet. 

As to "big-money" crops which 
wrest the land away from the beet, 
this is a condition met generally in 
the United States. 

Whether or not the production of 
beet sugar in any given section can 
be made a permanent success has 
been shown to depend largely upon 
whether or not that section is adapt- 
[50] 



Cane vs. Be e t 

ed to crops yielding a greater return. 
For example, land which could for- 
merly be bought in Idaho for $75.00 
to $100.00 per acre as beet land has 
now risen in price from $150.00 to 
$300.00 per acre because of its adapt- 
ability to fruit growing. 

In Idaho, Colorado, and other 
states the beet crop, thus, is rapidly 
being supplanted by fruits and vege- 
tables with which the beet cannot be 

expected to compete in earning power. 
* * * * 

There are many other causes which 
underlie the recession of the beet and 
from which its further decline may 
; - be forecast. 

Among these is the fact that the 
milling season is an extremely short 
one, and because of this beet sugar 
factories in many states import raw 
cane sugar to carry their production 
period over into what would other- 
wise be idle seasons. In almost every 
[511 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

case where this has been tried the 

raw cane sugar has proven a better 

profit earner for the mill than the 

beets which lay close at hand. 
* * * * 

Summing up, we see that beet 
stole a lead on cane because beet had 
the best minds of Europe improving 
it while cane suffered from tropical 
sloth. Beet is at the maximum of its 
eflSciency, while cane has just begun 
to take its first steps. 

The same inventive genius is now 
being applied to the improvement of 
cane and when this improvement 
reaches its maximum, as it will dur- 
ing the next few decades, it may con- 
fidently be expected that beet will 
take but a minor part in the produc- 
tion of the world's sugar. 



52] 




■' MtM 



lU z 
It o 
< 



I 



(£ 

D 

z m 

D « 

a: t 
< D. 



IV. Cuba — The Sugar 
Bowl of the World 

If our sugar crop is to be multi- 
plied by seven as prospective needs 
seem to require, we must, in a survey 
such as this, see where the increase 
is to come from; and, assuming that 
beet, under the double stress of ever 
increasing competition from better- 
paying temperate-zone crops and 
improvement in the production of 
cane, is to be less and less in evi- 
dence, we must see where cane, par- 
ticularly, can be extended. 

After fourteen centuries of experi- 
ment with cane, two spots have 
established themselves as pre-emi- 
nently suited to its culture — two 
spots have been found where soil, 
temperature, rainfall, and all of the 
other necessary elements seem to 
[53] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

have conspired together to create 
ideal conditions for cane. 

These spots, both islands, one in 
the West Indies, one in the East, 
are Cuba and Java. 

Cane is raised successfully in India, 
in Australia, in South America, in 
South Africa, in Formosa, in the 
Philippines, in Hawaii, in the gulf 
section of the United States, in 
Mexico, in Porto Rico, and other 
islands of the West Indies. 

But of all these localities, Cuba 

and Java seem, by nature, best fitted 

for the production of this crop. 
* * * * 

I Cuba and Java are both long, nar- 
row islands of about the same area, 
one lying about as far north of the 
equator as the other lies south; both 
have about the same amount of heat, 
moisture and wind; but in the ex- 
treme fertility of its soil Cuba shows 
a marked superiority over Java. 
[54 1 



World's Sugar Bowl 

In our minds, quite likely, we pic- 
ture these islands as being smaller 
than they really are. 

Cuba, for example, if laid down 
on the United States with its eastern 
end at New York City, would extend 
almost to Cincinnati. It varies in 
width from twenty -two to 160 miles. 
Its area is almost the same as that 
of England; or to bring the com- 
parison nearer home, Cuba is larger 
than Indiana, Pennsylvania, or Ohio 
— not quite so large as New York, 
Illinois, or Wisconsin. It is con- 
siderably larger than the combined 
areas of Connecticut, Rhode Island, 
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and 
Vermont. 

In population it is about the same 
as California, Indiana, Iowa, or Wis- 
consin. 

* * * * 

A glance at the figures showing 
Cuba's present importance in the 
[55] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

production of cane sugar may be of 
interest. 

Country Short Tons 

Cuba 3,000,000 
British India (consumed locally) 2,400,000 

Java 1,264,000 

Hawaii 585,000 

Porto Rico 350,000 

Philippines 300,000 

Peru 200,000 

Brazil 194,000 

Argentina ^ ^ 175,000 

State of Louisiana 150,000 

State of Texas 1,000 

The secret of Cuba's superiority 
lies in both the quantity and quality 
of her soil. 

With a depth, in some places, of 
as much as thirty feet of soil, the 
richness is such that cane, with a 
single planting, will bear its annual 
crop for from seven to ten years; 
while in the two next important cane 
countries — Java and British India — 
replanting is done every year. 

In Cuba, too, the seasons are ideal 
for the economical production both 
[56] 



World's Sugar Bowl 

of cane and of raw sugar. The warm- 
est months are from May to October, 
and these are the rainy months. The 
distribution of the rain during this 
hot spell is such that a much smaller 
quantity of water is required than 
would be the case in other regions 
where the rainfall is less evenly 
distributed. 

When the six months' rainfall is 
at an end, and the cane is ready to 
harvest, a six months' dry period sets 
in; and with the resultant dry fields 
and dry roads, the operations of 
harvesting and grinding are accom- 
plished under the most favorable con- 
ditions. 

When the Cuban grinding season — 
December 1st to May 1st — is fin- 
ished, the fields are green again and 
the cane is well on its way toward 
the next season's crop. 

There are, in fact, cases on record 
of fields which still yield satisfactory 
[57] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

crops, season after season, without 
fresh planting, after having been cut 
uninterruptedly for thirty years. 

In Hawaii, on the other hand, long 
famous for its sugar production, the 
cane not only must be planted for 
every second or third crop, but 
eighteen months of continuous, in- 
tensive cultivation is required to 
bring a crop to maturity. 

5fC 5JS ^ ^ _ 

The history of cane sugar in Cuba 
reads like a romance. 

About twenty years elapsed after 
the discovery of Cuba, by Chris- 
topher Columbus, in 1492, before 
sugar cane was sent by Spain to 
Cuba for planting. The experiment 
showed the Spaniards the perfect 
suitability of Cuba's fertile soil for 
cane's growth and development; but 
the Spanish government of the six- 
teenth and seventeenth centuries 
was gold-mad and discouraged agri- 
[58] 



World's Sugar Bowl 

cultural productions of all kinds in 
favor of mining. Indeed, after a very 
few years, the cultivation of sugar 
cane in Cuba was forbidden, and 
even after that prohibition was with- 
drawn, cane was permitted to be 
grown only under governmental 
monopolies and privileges which had 
such a restrictive influence that no 
real progress was made with cane on 
the Island until about 1772. 

After that year, however, any 
Spaniard was free to produce sugar, 
and this led to such an increased 
production that the exportation more 
than trebled in thirty years. 

By 1800 Cuba had 870 sugar fac- 
tories and was exporting more than 
40,000 tons a year. Owing to Napo- 
leon's "Continental System" which 
took Europe out of Cuba's market 
during the first years of the nine- 
teenth century, the industry suffered 
heavily; but after Napoleon's fall, 
[59] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

with intercourse again established, 
Cuba's sugar began to expand at 
even more than its former rapid rate. 

Although the production thus in- 
creased, the methods of cultivation 
and manufacture remained crude and 
primitive. During this period no 
reliable statistics were recorded, but 
it is known that in 1870 the yearly 
output ran to 725,000 tons which 
represented the product of no fewer 
than 1,000 small factories. This 
period of prosperity was brought to 
an end by the abolition of slavery 
and by the "Ten Years' War" with 
Spain. This war, one of great bitter- 
ness on both sides, not only paralyzed 
commerce but led to the devastation 
of much sugar property. 

It was during this period, too, 
that the competition with beetroot 
sugar first became noticeably threat- 
ening. After the war was over, 
however, in 1878, the annual output 
[60 1 



World's Sugar Bowl 

rose again so that, in 1890, 625,000 
tons were produced from about 470 
factories. From this point, the pro- 
duction went steadily upward until 
it reached a maximum of something 
over a million tons in 1894. 

In the following year, 1895, how- 
ever, the final rebellion against Spain 
broke out, and after much devasta- 
tion, it ended in the Spanish-Ameri- 
can War, and ultimately in the 
establishment of the Cuban Repub- 
lic. This period of strife was the 
worst in the entire history of Cuba — 
on both sides property was burned 
and destroyed, cattle were killed, 
and other reprisals put into effect 
for the purpose of cutting off an 
opponent's livelihood — ^for the Island 
itself was far from being a unit on 
the question of rebellion. 

Owing to the demolition of fac- 
tories, the burning of cane fields and 
the destruction of work-cattle, and 
[61] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

the enlistment of citizens in the 
armies, it became almost an impos- 
sibility to carry on the sugar in- 
dustry at all. In spite of the strict 
orders issued by the Spanish author- 
ities to continue grinding, the pro- 
duction, in 1897, went down nearly 
to 200,000 tons. 

As can be well imagined, the 
industry recovered but slowly when 
this period of misery and destruction 
had come to an end; factories had 
been destroyed; the working popu- 
lation had been reduced and made 
more or less unfit for work; work- 
cattle, representing the sole means of 
cultivation and conveyance, had been 
wantonly destroyed; the financial 
situation was such that manufac- 
turers were unable to raise the funds 
necessary for rebuilding factories or 
equipping them ; and a general period 
of reconstruction and centralization 
set in. 

[62 1 



World's Sugar Bowl 

Notwithstanding this set-back, 
production rose from 212,051 tons in 
1897 to 612,775 in 1901, passing the 
miUion ton mark in 1903, the miUion- 
and-a-half ton mark in 1909, the 
two-miUion ton mark in 1913 — and, 
with the 1915-16 season, passed the 
three-milhon ton mark. 



There are other islands in the West 
Indies and surroundings which, by 
reason of location and climate, 
might seem as well suited to sugar 
production as Cuba. 

There are several reasons why 
they are not — but the chief of these 
is that the United States Govern- 
ment has stamped out the old politi- 
cal unrest — the wars and revolutions 
with their bloodshed — which, form- 
erly kept Cuba down, while all of 
Cuba's neighbors, save Porto Rico 
alone, are still living, pohtically, in 
[63] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

the tempestuous pirate-times of cen- 
turies ago. 

If we look at Cuba's less fortunate 
neighbors — and at the sugar belt 
which girdles the earth — it would 
seem as if the same tropical rains and 
sunshine which are needed for the 
production of cane also conspire to 
form an ideal atmosphere for foment- 
ing political unrest. Hayti, Guate- 
mala, San Salvador, Honduras, 
Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Colombia 
— all of these are sugar producing 
countries on a limited scale, but so 
subject to outbreaks are they, that 
their sugar industries have never 
presented an inviting appeal to the 
capital necessary to bring them to 
their maxima. 

In Mexico, from which much might 
otherwise be expected, there is chaos, 
and the threat of continued chaos, 
while Cuba, much better suited by 
soil and climate to sugar production, 
[64 1 



World's Sugar Bowl 

with the United States Government 
fostering her, and irrevocably bound 
to continue safeguarding her, enjoys 
a stabihty which may well be com- 
pared with the stability, for example, 
of the State of New Jersey. 

Cuba has always had her soil; she 
has always had a market for more 
sugar than she could produce. Yet 
in her first century of sugar produc- 
tion she reached a bare million tons 
of production; while in the seven- 
teen years since she has been a 
Republic, in spite of the set-back of 
a reconstruction period, her produc- 
tion has jumped to three million tons. 

5f» 0^ 5JC ^ 

The chief problem in sugar growing 
(as in the manufacture of any com- 
modity) is the cost of production. 

As to Cuba's cost of production, 

Willett & Gray quoted in 1910 the 

following figures: Cuba sugar, f.o.b. 

Cuba, costs $.0185 per pound or 

[65 1 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

$.0195 per pound c.i.f. New York. 
They fixed $.02 per pound as the 
maximum f.o.b. Cuba cost price, and 
$.015 per pound as the minimum. 

Undoubtedly, in the six years 
which have intervened, the cost of 
production has been still further 
reduced; and with American capital 
and ingenuity going into Cuba as 
they are, another decade or so must 
see production costs brought down 
still nearer the irreducible minimum. 

But if no further reduction could 
be wrought, Cuba stands and always 
must stand in an enviable position 
with relation to the largest buyer of 
sugar in the world. 

Spreading out over and around her, 
within easy access, lies the United 
States which buys and consumes 
about four million tons of sugar a 
year. Less than one-fourth of this 
comes from Porto Rico, Hawaii, and 
the Philippines; less than one-sixth 
[66] 



World's Sugar Bowl 

is beet sugar grown within her own 
borders; less than one-twentieth is 
cane sugar of her own growing. 

The figures of Willett & Gray show 
that in 1914 the United States im- 
ported 2,066,912 tons of cane sugar 
in addition to all the sugar produc- 
tion of her own states and territories. 
Cuba, therefore, had at her very door 
a ready market for practically four- 
fifths of her 2,597,732 ton crop. 

The United States, of course, is 
not her only market; Cuba is nearer 
to England than India; nearer to 
Central Europe than Java. And the 
recent past has shown that the 
slightest strain in Europe pulls in- 
stantly on the Cuban sugar supply. 
* * * * 

Porto Rico cannot much increase 
her output; her total area is con- 
siderably less than that of New 
Jersey, and only a small portion of 
this, on the coastal regions, is suited 
[67] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

to cane-growing. Hawaii cannot 
compete with Cuba's natural ad- 
vantages to the point of much 
further extension; the PhiHppines 
have not shown much progress, their 
sugar industry is still in its experi- 
mental stage; and Mexico is out of 
the sugar race for many years to 
come, even if ideal political condi- 
tions could prevail and continue. 

:^ ^ Hi % 

It would seem that nature had out- 
done herself to make Cuba the sugar 
bowl of the world; and that civili- 
zation had done her part in settling 
the world's largest market for sugar 
right at her shores. 

What further the future holds in 
store for Cuba and her sugar, de- 
pends now on the skill and enter- 
prise of man. 

Cuban Sugar can be as big as Mind 
and Capital can make it — and there- 
in lies America's Opportunity. 




< 

< 



z 

< H 

(E (t 

Q < 

V U 



V. Cuban Cane Sugar — 
America's Opportunity 

An English physician Hving on 
the Httle island of Trinidad observed 
one day that grass-like plants were 
coming up here and there in the cane 
fields. 

The planters whom he asked about 
it told him it was grass, and showed 
no further curiosity. The physician, 
however, unable to account for grass 
seeds having fallen there, suspected 
that these were really the shoots of 
seedling sugar-canes. 

It developed later that both the 
planters and the physician were right. 
The little shoots were young sugar- 
cane plants; but since sugar cane 
itself is a giant grass, there was no 
mistake. 

The importance of the physician's 
observation lay in the fact that sugar- 
[69 1 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

cane had been believed, for ages, to 
be sterile; no such thing as a seed- 
ling of sugar cane had ever been 
heard of. 

There is, be it known, a small 
company of cultivated plants which 
have almost altogether given up the 
habit of seed-production. The horse- 
radish, for example, has so long been 
seedless that offers of $50,000 have 
been made for a thimbleful of its 
seed. Similarly, the common potato 
has almost abandoned the habit, and 
the marked improvement in our 
potatoes as against those of thirty 
years ago is due wholly to the fact 
that some seed-bearing potatoes were 
accidentally discovered. 

The cane, for ages, has been 
propagated in the same way that the 
potato has. When potatoes are 
planted, one of the twenty-seven 
eyes of a potato is merely placed in 
the ground and left to sprout; when 
[70 1 



Americas Opportunity 

cane is planted, one of the short 
segments of the stalk is placed in the 
ground and soon throws out roots 
of its own. When plants are prop- 
agated in this way, there is no 
chance for variation and consequent 
improvement. It is the same old 
plant growing over and over again — 
there are no new combinations of 
heredity to combine in working the 
wonders of variation. 

The discovery of cane seedlings, 
thus — although undoubtedly there 
had been many such seedlings, un- 
noticed, before — was one, therefore, 
of the utmost importance. 

The Trinidad physician, full of 
enthusiasm at uncovering one of 
Nature's secrets, transplanted a num- 
ber of the cane-seedlings, brought 
them to maturity, and found several 
new and apparently superior vari- 
eties of the cane among them. 

One of these was carried subse- 
[711 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

quently to the Hawaiian Islands 
where it was propagated in the usual 
way, so that, in due course, sufficient 
plants were raised from it to be 
tested as to their qualities of growth, 
hardiness, and sugar-production. It 
was soon discovered that the prog- 
eny of this seedling constituted 
virtually a new race of sugar cane; 
one that would grow on land so poor 
that it had been allowed to remain 
fallow. The new variety, indeed, 
was found to produce more sugar on 
even the poorest land than the 
ordinary variety produces on good 
land. 

The impetus which this discovery 
gave to the study of improving the 
cane may in a large measure account 
for Hawaii's great superiority, in the 
quality of cane raised, over other 
cane-producing countries. 

In Hawaii, today, not only is the 
acreage output the highest of any 
[72] 



Americas Opportunity 

cane-growing country, but the sugar 
content of the cane itself is higher. 
Hawaiian cane averages more than 
sixteen parts of sugar to 100 parts of 
cane, whereas Cuban cane averages 
less than twelve parts of sugar to 
100 parts of cane. Hawaii, with cer- 
tain natural disadvantages, could 
not, in fact, market sugar profita- 
bly with less eflScient production. 
* * * * 

This brings us to the first great 
sugar opportunity of Cuba — im- 
provement in the kinds of cane 
grown, and improvement in cane- 
growing methods. 

In spite of the fact that Cuban 
cane-growers have long known of 
better varieties which might easily 
be procured for planting, yet these 
innovations have not been welcome. 
The planters are familiar with the 
varieties now in use, while new kinds, 
of course, must first be tried out. 
[73 1 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

In countries where planting is done 
every year, such trials entail little 
risk; for should the crop be a partial 
failure, it affects only that year and 
involves no further loss. But in 
Cuba, where planting is done but 
once in from seven to ten years, the 
selection of the wrong kind of cane 
would bring ruin. 

So Cuba's cane-growers, with 
neither the land nor the resources, 
nor the enterprise to experiment, 
have sat idly back, planting, in most 
cases, the same old varieties which 
the Spaniards brought over decades 
ago. 

Since there are varieties of cane 
known which produce about twenty- 
five per cent, more sugar than the 
present Cuban cane, there is ob- 
viously incentive, a-plenty, for ex- 
perimentation with better varieties 
of cane — if the experimenters operate 
on a scale large enough to insure 
[74] 



Americas Opportunity 

constant earnings while the experi- 
mentation takes place. 

Nor can it be doubted that the 
scientific plant-breeder can work a 
much greater increase, even, than is 
represented by the best varieties now 
in existence. By cross-breeding and 
selection, if enough experiments be 
tried, it will be possible to evolve a 
variety of cane which will get the 
utmost out of the wonderful soil 
Cuba offers as a habitat. 

To the hand-to-mouth owner of a 
small plantation, such experiments 
seem out of the question. But to a 
company with a 100,000 to 500,000 
ton production, experimentation up- 
on a scale bound to bring success 
would cost a mere fraction of a per 
cent, of its earnings. 

The result, on the other hand, if, 

for example, a twenty-five per cent. 

increase of sugar per 100 parts of 

cane were secured, would represent 

[75] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

not merely a twenty-five per cent, 
increase in earnings, but might mean 
even trebled or quadrupled earnings ; 
for — since it costs no more to plant, 
or cultivate, or harvest, or crush the 
cane — every additional per cent, of 
sugar secured can be counted net 
gain. 

V "T* V H* 

The development of better suited 
varieties of cane, however, repre- 
sents but a small part of the oppor- 
tunity offered in improved sugar 
production. Equally great advances 
might also be attained through bet- 
ter methods of soil tillage, main- 
tenance of property and plantation 
management. 

As matters now stand, deep plow- 
ing is almost unknown in Cuba — 
scratching the soil has always 
brought a crop, so surface scratching 
is all the soil has had. Once the 
same thorough methods that are the 
[76 1 



Americas Opportunity 

rule in Iowa, or the Dakotas, or Cal- 
ifornia, are introduced into Cuban 
cane culture, amazing results may 
reasonably be expected. 

The truth is that the land is so 
rich and the climate so well suited 
to cane, that those simple methods 
of making agriculture pay, which 
every other farmer employs, have 
been neglected and shunned; and 
the cane crop has been left to the 

graces of a too bounteous Nature. 
* * * * 

A story is told of an undertaking, 
some years ago, to provide the 
American Indian with better means 
of earning his livelihood. The ques- 
tion was asked of a wise Indian 
commissioner if, in his estimation, 
the Indian could successfully engage 
in raising sugar beets. 

"Yes," was the reply, ''if he 
could do it on horseback." 

Very similar, indeed, has been the 
[77] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

attitude of the Cuban cane-grower 
toward his cane. 

2)C 5)C 3)C SjC 

Great as is the opportunity of 
improving Cuban agriculture, greater 
still is the opportunity of improving 
Cuban manufacturing. 

In Hawaii, for example, where 
sugar efficiency, both in growing and 
in manufacturing has always to be 
at its best, as high as ninety-five per 
cent, of the sugar in the cane is 
extracted. In Java, Cuba's nearest 
competitor, the extraction averages 
well over ninety per cent. But in 
Cuba, in spite of much modern ma- 
chinery, the extraction is materially 
less. While the definite figures are 
not available, there is good author- 
ity for the statement that the aver- 
age loss of sugar in Cuba exceeds 
that of any other cane growing 
country. 

One reason for this wastage is 
[78] 



Americas Opportunity 

the Cuban climate. The same well 
distributed rains which make the 
cane grow as it does, serve also to 
make the cane fields and the roads 
impassable to the harvesters. The 
grinding, therefore, is limited to the 
six months' dry season. During 
this season the sugar content varies, 
from eight per cent, at the beginning 
of the season up to twelve and fif- 
teen per cent., and even more, at 
its end. 

The same hand-to-mouth policy 
which has been in evidence in Cuban 
cane-growing here comes to the sur- 
face in Cuban raw sugar manu- 
facturing. Instead of properly 
planning the grinding of the crop so 
as to distribute it over the grinding 
season, thus gaining the highest per- 
centage of extraction, growers have 
been in the habit of holding their 
crops as long as they dared for a 
higher sugar content, while the mills 
[79 1 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

lay idle; much good cane has thus 
been lost because in the final-mo- 
ment rush the mills were taxed far 
beyond their capacity. It has be- 
come the practice of mills, thus, to 
bend every effort toward handling 
the largest quantity of cane, paying 
little attention to the wastage which 
such high pressure methods involve. 
And the net result has been that 
Cuba has wasted a considerable 
percentage of her sugar which, sim- 
ply by efl[icient management, might 

have been saved. 

* * * * 

Sugar-growing, and sugar-growing 
in Cuba, particularly, must, essen- 
tially, be a large scale operation. 

The small grower, today, finds 
himself unable to compete with even 
the few moderate-sized sugar under- 
takings which have sprung up in 
Cuba; and with production be- 
coming better and better organized, 
[80 1 



Americas Opportunity 

as it must, his position will become 
more and more difficult. 

Quite clearly the tendency toward 
centralization in the business has 
been written into the figures: in 
1800, with a 24,000 ton production 
of sugar, there were 870 factories in 
Cuba; by 1870, with a 725,000 ton 
production, there were 1,000 fac- 
tories — a 3200 per cent, increase in 
production with only a sixteen per 
cent, increase in the number of fac- 
tories — already centralization on a 
small scale had begun to set in; in 
1890, with a 625,000 ton production, 
there were but 470 factories; while 
in 1911, with nearly a 2,000,000 ton 
production, there were but 168 fac- 
tories. 

Yet organization and centraliza- 
tion, which, as can be seen, have been 
the tendency for more than a cen- 
tury, are really only at their be- 
ginning in Cuba — sugar operations 
[811 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

from this time forward must be 
upon larger and larger scales, and 
the trend of developments give prom- 
ise that they will be. 

Cuba has much modern sugar 
machinery and many modern sugar 
mills; she needs all these, and more 
like them; but Cuba's big opportu- 
nities are not alone for the machinery 
salesman; the big opportunities she 
presents are for enterprise and effici- 
ciency; the same kind of enterprise 
and efficiency that have placed Ameri- 
can steel, American automobiles, 
American farm machinery and other 
American products in the forefront 
of the world's markets. And for 
such enterprise and efficiency, her 
sugar can afford to pay, as neither 
steel nor automobiles nor farm ma- 
chinery have ever been able to pay. 
* * * * 

Just as Cuba has conducted her 
cane-growing and her milling in a 

[82] 



Americas Opportunity 

hand-to-mouth fashion, so too has 
she conducted the marketing of this, 
her most important crop. 

Cuba's cane-growers have always 
been at the mercy of the fluctuations 
of the market — at the mercy, some- 
times, of artificial conditions created 
for the purpose of making the mar- 
ket fluctuate. The growers, in times 
of plenty, have been compelled to sell 
at a low market, and have found 
themselves, later, in times of scarcity 
and with prices soaring, without a 
product to deliver. The producer 
thus has suffered, at no advantage 
to the consumer. Nature has made 
Cuba strong in sugar, but ineffi- 
ciency has made her weak in finance, 
and she has been pinched and 
squeezed in times when she might 

as easily have dictated. 

* * * * 

Cuba's great opportunity, thus, 
will belong to Capital — fearless capi- 
[83] 



Cuban Cane Sugar 

tal which shall lift her chief industry 
out of its Spanish lethargy — capital 
to provide improvements in agricul- 
ture and in manufacture — capital, 
with confidence, to create marketing 
conditions, instead of being the slave 
of them. 

Already American capital is work- 
ing wonders for Cuba in other lines — 
already it has spanned her length 
with a modern railroad and brought 
the island within train and ferry 
distance of New York; and already 
American investment in transport- 
ation is beginning to reap its reward. 
* * * * 

Improved methods of cane-grow- 
ing — up to date agriculture; im- 
proved methods of sugar-making — 
up to date manufacturing; improved 
methods of marketing — up to date 
merchandising; these are the definite 
ways in which Cuban cane sugar can 
be placed on a higher plane. These 
[84] 



Americas Opportunity 

are the definite opportunities, there- 
fore, which are now opened up to 
American industry, efiiciency and 
capital. 



[ The End 



[85 



i 



